12.08.2012

Along a mild section of Appalachian Trail in the hills
around Norwich and Hanover, there is a small shelter (previously maintained by
the Dartmouth Outing Club, now the responsibility of the Green Mountain Club)
with a big responsibility. The Happy Hill shelter on the Appalachian Trail in
Vermont is home to the first of the new generation of backcountry composting
outhouses: a universally accessible, two chambered moldering privy.

As backcountry facilities are being replaced, renovated, and
updated on our public lands across New England, these facilities are now being
designed to meet the requirements of universal access. Land managers and non
profit partners balance the needs of accessibility (size of the building, width
of the door, angle of the ramp) as well as the traditional design
considerations of the science of composting and that intangible wilderness
character. The Happy Hill outhouse, completed in 2012 by the Green Mountain
Club, is the first attempt at striking that balance. (Here at AMC trails we
have met the requirements of accessibility by building Garfield and Eliza’s new
shelters at the precise height off the ground, in order for a person to
transfer off a wheelchair onto the shelter floor.)

“But why do you build an accessible building in the middle
of the woods?”, is often the question raised about accessibility in the
backcountry.

There are many ways to answer this question. The first is
political. As a civil right, (the rights of the disabled community have now
been recognized as civil rights), we as the abled community should not judge
what the disabled community can or cannot accomplish. For decades the disabled
community has fought in a variety of arenas for equality: equality of work,
pay, access to buildings. This a similar kind of fight that other communities
have fought for, and have resulted in desegregation and women’s right to vote. During
those fights for equality, the majority side fully believed they ‘knew’ how to
make decisions about the minority sides abilities and interests; as a majority of able-bodied people, we really can not be in the business of judging the capabilities of the disabled.

The second is a philosophical one. Why do we modify
outhouses to include stairs to access the door? Most outhouses are on remote
hiking trails that include hand over hand ledge climbs (Mahoosuc Notch to Speck
Pond) or grueling long distances and rock hopping across streams (Guyot), and
if a person can hike to those remote places, why do we need to modify the
outhouse to have stairs? Certainly a person could step up into an outhouse if
they can make it through Mahoosuc Notch. And if we give able-bodied individuals
a set of steps, why can’t we give disabled individuals a ramp or a transfer
handrail?

These reasons, philosophical and political, challenge us as
abled-bodied to think about the basic assumptions we use to guide our decisions
about what is the ‘right’ way to do things. At any rate, these are the
requirements that we work within, and in many ways are simply another set of
considerations that we add to our decision making (cost, wilderness character,
durability, sustainability). As a program manager responsible for 18 different
outhouses across the White and Mahoosuc Mountains, as well as an individual who
has strong connections to the differently abled community in New Hampshire, I
believe in civil rights and the spectrum of access.

The Happy Hill outhouse is a feat of accessible engineering,
thrifty budgeting (all materials were hand-carried in), and creative thinking
from some of the premier composting minds of the Northeast. There were lessons
learned in design (how to access the material underneath), to be incorporated
in future outhouses.